Hatch: IRS 'purposefully misled me'

Republicans are training their attacks on acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller amid new revelations that he and the agency’s former top official knew employees were targeting conservative groups but failed to notify Congress despite repeated requests.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, and 10 other GOP lawmakers wrote to then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman on June 18, 2012, demanding answers on why the agency requested donor information from groups seeking nonprofit status.

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By the time this letter was sent, Shulman and Miller, who was the deputy IRS commissioner at the time, had been aware of the extent of the targeting program for about a month.

Still, in a Sept. 11, 2012, response to the letter, Miller offered a broad interpretation of the law allowing the request for donor information and said nothing about the targeting practice.

“They purposefully misled me,” Hatch told reporters on Tuesday. “I am very upset about it. This should have never happened.”

Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS division the oversees tax-exempt groups, acknowledged that groups seeking nonprofit status were flagged for additional review if their applications included phrases like “tea party” or “patriot.” She told reporters that requesting donor information isn’t standard practice at the IRS.

Shulman may have been running the IRS at the time, but Miller’s role is taking center stage now. His responses to the GOP letter — and others like it — along with his new job as the acting IRS commissioner put him squarely in the cross hairs of Republican lawmakers.

The letters between Hatch and Miller are written in dry tax-speak but are shaping up as central to GOP claims that Miller hid what he knew about the targeting, even as Hatch and others asked the IRS directly — and pointedly — about whether it was going on.

“What is the specific statutory authority giving the IRS authority to request actual donor names during reviews of applications for recognition of exemption under Section 501(c)(4)?” Hatch and the other GOP lawmakers asked on June 18, 2012. “Is it customary for IRS agents to request donor and contributor identifying information during review of applications for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4)? Please provide the number of requests by the IRS for such information for each year from 2002 to 2011.”

But Miller’s reply gave no hint that he did, in fact, have knowledge about what Hatch was seeking.

“The applicable regulations are authorized by Section 7805 of the Internal Revenue Code, which provides general authority to prescribe all needed regulations for the enforcement of tax rules,” he wrote.

Some lawmakers, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) called for him to step down on Monday.